Honest, or Not so Honest, Conversations
by Cotto
Summary: Anyone else who watched the latter half of Once Upon A Time season 4 get the impression that Lily was frankly in love with Emma, and that's why she got in trouble? I just watched that part again, and that's the idea I got from the episodes that show her. Anyways, this isn't about that, this is about friendship and rescues. Please read, review/comment, and enjoy.
**Honest (or not so honest) Conversations**

 _ **By James Carmody.**_

 **Disclaimer:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon, and Once Upon A Time is the property of Kitsis and Horowitz. I formally and completely renounce the rights to any money for this Fanfiction piece. This is just for fun, my own and that of others._

 **Pairing(s):** _Mr. Gold/First Evil, Faith Lehane/Willow Rosenberg/Kennedy (friendship), (possibly) Regina Mills/Faith Lehane, Emma Swan/Regina Mills, Emma Swan/Lily Page/the Apprentice, Killian Jones/Emma Swan, Buffy Summers/Spike, and others will follow. If they do, the chapters that have them will have the pairing at the beginning, but sequential chapters won't._

 **Characters:** _Mr. Gold\Rumplestiltskin, The First Evil, Faith Lehane, Willow Rosenberg, Kennedy, Buffy Summers, Spike Pratt, Lily Page, Emma Swan, Killian Jones, the Apprentice, Regina Mills, and various other characters also._

 **Summary:** _Anyone else who watched the latter half of Once Upon A Time season 4 get the impression that Lily was frankly in love with Emma, and that's why she got in trouble? I just watched that part again, and that's the idea I got from the episodes that show her. Anyways, this isn't about that, this is about friendship and rescues. Please read, review/comment, and enjoy._

 **Author's Story Notes:** _This:_ [text] _means telepathy of some sorts, including prayer, but also temptation. This:_ {text} _means a telepathic command._

 _Warning: there will be some angry words in this, the lesser ones may be written out, the stronger ones will be represented by *bleep* kind of a representation with some idea of what the aforementioned expletive is; but such words will never be written or spoken. Also: at least one of the villains will reveal itself in another way: by claiming to be a deity- this is deliberate, and not blasphemy on the author's part- but to show you who or more precicely whom this villain really is! There is also going to be aluded-to references to a sexual assault that happened in OUAT, but was only revealed as in the background- and rightly so- however, this is to show you the kind of person who was violated; and what he'd do or not do._

 _Please do write to me about anything not clear and I'll try to clairify the matter, but patience is required for any of this kind of activity, so we will have to be patient with eachother._

 _This story is about love; but true love, not the typical garbage that love was restricted to thanks to those idiots who carried out the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s, more of a rebellion was what they did, and like any rebellion, it'll never work in what they want it to do! True love is platonic, definitely *not* sexual!_

 **Chapter 1.): "Bringing a woman back to her mother."**

 **Beginning Chapter 1 Author's Notes:** _Sorry about this, but this'll be jumping about a little bit. I'll try to give a sense of the whereabouts the characters are in each part of the scene and/or chapter, if this continues beyond chapter 1. Please tell me what you think of this._

 **Somewhere on a Highway between Mass. and Maine…**

Regina Mills was horrified at the internal changes happening to Emma Swan- not only the only true heroine Regina knew, also thanks to her gift of a son that they both shared because of adoption, also Regina Mill's heroine. She felt shocked as Emma proceeded to punch Lily Page and then point a pistol her friend had on her person right at the kneeling woman's face!

"Emma, if you follow through with this, you'll be a murderess." Regina begged her to reconsider her upcoming actions as she watched Emma point a firearm straight between poor Lily's eyes as Lily knelt down on the side of the interstate highway. Regina was truly scared for her friend, and incidentially, in a most peculiar way, for her relative as well- you might even say her co-mother, as they shared a child, a handsome son thanks to the miracle of adoption. And adoption *was* a miracle, this act had helped to redeem Regina from a very twisted path she was on. Miss Mills was still a sorceress, so she still had quite a ways to go in getting her life in order, she still toyed around with the occult from time to time, but thanks to her blonde friend's baby boy also being *her* baby boy, she was finally on the pathway to her happy ending- a fate she didn't want to bollix up; absolutely not, as far as messing this situation up! So she did the only thing she could do, she begged her to reconsider her desire to end the life of this thirty-year-old brunette woman, a woman that for all intents and purposes could well be Emma's non-identical twin sister, their lives were so tightly tied together.

"I'm already a murderess." Emma countered, having despaired of getting her innocence back from the darkness she'd yielded to in order to protect Henry Mills, her and Regina's son. Then she said something that turned Regina's blood to ice: "One more life isn't going to make that much of a difference- or have you already forgotten what I did to Cruella?" Emma demanded of her companion on this trip.

"That was different, believe me, with Cruella she was about to kill Henry, and you reacted not knowing that she couldn't do the deed… here, with this young woman, she's completely at your mercy. You kill her, it's a hard journey back to the light, believe me, I know." Regina tried to reason with Emma.

Lily, the attractive brunette currently kneeling down in the street with a pistol aimed at her face, hadn't lived for thirty years in this world- having been transported to this realm on the very day of her birth. She looked right into the eyes of the blonde woman who was about to kill her, and she tried to stare her down, as a final act of definance to her would-be murderess. She could see the conflict in Emma's face, and just for a moment wanted to push this blonde woman's buttons. True she had loved her when they were about sixteen- in fact, she'd fallen in love with her immediately on meeting her! Lily chuckled to herself, despite the situation. _"I'm in love with my murderess."_ She laughed. That drove Emma berserk! Lily continued laughing in her mind at her predicament _"This blonde chick's going to murder me right here and I'm in love with her- am I messed up or what?"_ Lily pondered, trying to puzzle out her interior emotional situation.

Emma, at this dark time in her life, when she had heard this brunette she had thought was her friend during her teen years threaten her family, as she kept the firearm aimed at her victim's head, suddenly heard what her boyfriend, Killian Jones, had told her: "Don't give in to the darkness, vengeance is tempting, darkness always is…" his words continued, echoing on to nothing as she dwelt on the beginning of his warning of how easy temptation occurs to human beings. Emma was furious at this ex-friend of hers who kept on screwing everything up… for just one fleeting moment; she wanted to screw Lily up, perhaps even more than the brunette was in the first place!

 _"Do I do it emotionally, physically,_ _literally_ _, intimately?"_ then even deeper in her mind she thought _"*Yuck about the last one, I want to hurt her, not mess myself up!*"_ before continuing her thoughts of how to get revenge on this screw-up who'd messed up her relationship with her one real foster family! _"Okayyy, that last one's out, especially since it's just plain gross, but I_ _still_ _want to mess her up, for threatening my parents and my son, as well as his other mother- and that's just plain weird, when will I ever get adjusted to this relationship I have with Miss Mills?"_ Emma wondered, as her flabbergasted state of mind and emotions only caused her thoughts to go all over the place- and rounding them up was like trying to rangle sheep- nigh impossible!

Thanks to Emma Swan's thoughts being all over the place, her thoughts were all over the place, and her magic was all out of whack, so the fact that she'd blown up her yellow bug's lights was not surprising- when Emma's magic acted up, electronic devices weren't safe around her. Regina hadn't been that surprised when during the catfight Emma'd blown up her vehicle's headlights, but Lily, Starla, or whoever this woman is, had looked astonished at that turn of events. What floored everyone who knew Regina and Emma was the fact that Regina had begged Emma to spare Lily's life, and the fact that Emma was about to commit murder- actual murder, not defense of another. Lily was helpless against Emma, and she wasn't even trying to resist- to save her life. It was almost as if she brown-haired woman wanted, actually _wanted_ to die!

In response to Lily's mysterious laughing, Emma screamed "SHUT UP!" then the most frightening event on this trip happened; Emma continued screaming at Lily "Unless you want to die _right now_ Shut Up! I swear, I _will_ kill you, Lily, or whoever you are! Right here, on this road…" Emma was berserk right now.

Lily chuckled to herself, in fact, she was answering in her own way.

Emma got even angrier with Lily "Do you have a death-wish, woman?" Emma demanded of Lily, keeping the pistol aimed right at her head, desireing so much to send a slug into her skull.

"Why shouldn't I want to die? Every family I've ever had has either kicked me out, or I've been ripped away from… I've been denied love of any sort, so my life, for want of a better term, is simply crap." Lily calmly replied, she'd been in so much pain for so long that by now that she was completely acclimated to pain, so it no longer bothered her. In fact, she had despaired of getting out of pain- life was pain, but she was becoming numb to it. For a time, she had thought that Emma's love of her in friendship had been a safe, and downright Heavenly, relationship in her life. No wonder then that she'd fallen completely in love with her; now to see her love-interest aiming a gun at her face was a source of total betrayal, and it crushed her.

Regina was horrified beyond almost all reason by Emma's cruelty towards Lily, she surely didn't want her friend Emma to go down the same road she had with Mr. Gold; and besides, she had promised herself that she'd be a better teacher, not to mention a more gentle teacher than he was to her. Mr. Gold was a bully, frankly, to Miss Mills, who had loved him dearly, albeit less-so than her insane sister, Zelina, whom he and their mess of a mother, Cora, had turned into a fellow sorceress. This was the main reason Gina spoke up, she cared about Emma, truly cared about her. A good part of her reason for caring about her was that Emma, by giving up her son to Gina for adoption, had helped her to be effectively redeemed from a lifetime of wickedness. Oh, Gina still had a lot to make up for, but being a mommy had helped her; by the very virtue of caring for and loving a newborn baby boy whom she had taken in and named "Henry". However, Gina's addiction to sorcery was deeply set in her personality, and so Henry's reaction to this was to try everything to break her from this addiction; their relationship had been badly stormy when Emma had first arrived in Storybrooke, between the three of them, but now it was beginning to iron itself out, and Regina had absolutely *no* intent of letting it go backwards, so she spoke up begging Emma to just lower the pistol she had leveled at Lily's head!

The sheer sight of Emma wanting to commit murder horrified Regina too, this resulted in Gina begging Emma to lower the weapon and to return Lily to Maleficent, Lily's mom. "Emma, just put the weapon down" Regina begged "we'll find a way to prevent her from acting up somehow, you don't need to stain your soul with murder- you're in enough danger as it is, especially with what Mr. Gold wants to do to you… please don't do this to her." Regina pleaded.

 **Meanwhile, in Storybrooke, Maine…**

Mr. Gold lay contentedly asleep next to his wife, Belle, and dreaming of having, finally having it all, or more precicely all he could ever think he wanted: a family and a job pretty well had that particular wizard set for happiness. However, someone, or actually some _thing_ was a little more unsettled about what was happening on the road to Storybrooke, and was determined to stop Emma's effort to return happiness to that town, no matter what the cost. It had already lost one profoundly gifted disciple, Gina, and was determined to avoid losing another; it also wanted Henry as another disciple of its own, and so was determined to lead the boy into darkness, effectively forever! This particular fallen angel had caused no end of trouble for humanity, and a favorite method of its is to use humans to cause trouble for other humans, or those same human beings- _"they are just so darn *easy* to manipulate, it almost takes all the fun out of it"_ the dark spirit thought as it contemplated Mr. Gold's soul and how to get him to harm his, or who is almost his daughter-in-law, Emma Swan- preferably to get him to murder her *before* she can undo just about all its influence on this town!

Rumplestiltskin turned in his sleep, slightly uncomfortable; he really had no reason to be, practically, but something was making him nervous. Unbidden, his conscience issued him a message: _"Maybe it's the demonic deal you did."_ Trying to get him to turn around and get right before it was too late. This 'spiritual battle' for influence went on for a while in the man's sleep, barely noticed by the fallen wizard, as he, the town's Mafia Don, snoozed as peacibly as he could, but his dreams were plagued by the underworld, and all the souls of people he'd murdered haunted him whenever his eyes closed… really it was a wonder he could sleep at all! The one ghost that really plagued his dreams was that of his own son, Neal Cassedy, who begged and pleaded with him to leave behind this gang-life he had embraced and become the upstanding gentleman he could well have been, once- Neal even begged him, reminding him of the day-dream he had had where he had been a dashing and heroic knight in the old land, how he was happy in that world; trying to reason with his gangster-of-a-father to return to righteousness and forego all dark powers. Neal even argued back to him, claiming that these "powers" that he had embraced weren't his, they were "demonic favors", and would hurt him without limit in the end. Rumplestiltskin would claim, every time, that he needed them to help him protect his family, and Neal would walk away, saddened, saying that he'd see what Bae meant by this claim, but would it be in time, Bae wondered to himself out-loud?

In Rumple's eyes, to forfeit his own happiness and safety was a worthwhile sacrifice to ensure his family's safety, but in reality Neal had been more terrified of Rumple than any harm in the outside world- little did he know that by sleeping with his live-in girlfriend and fathering a child with her he was endangering himself in ways he never could have imagined; never mind STDs, he was engaging in serving the very same demonic essence he was so adamant that his dad had embraced and he wanted to disown and live away from such a gang that he and his father were now effectively estranged from one-another!

[ _When she comes back, she will not be your servant. She will need to be destroyed before she undoes all your hard work…_ ]the demon told Rumple in his dream, a dream that had him wake up in a cold sweat as if he'd just run a mile in a blizzard, in his swimtrunks!

 _"Oops! Got to go, now, before I'm found out and trapped here."_ The evil spirit thought to itself, and teleported its attention out of the room, leaving Rumplestiltskin to his own temptations of his greed and flesh, which included laziness- always a fine way to get "customers" for favors, the fallen angel knew; the lazy are spectacular customers for the favors of fallen angels- yes, to them, sloth works miracles; a sick kind of miracles, but still.

Belle Gold awoke, to the jostling of the bed with her husband in panic-mode, and breathing heavily in terror. When she saw the state of her guy, she begged him to tell her what was wrong.

"It's nothing, Belle, just go back to sleep." Rumplestiltskin told his wife, lying to her through his teeth as he did so, all the while meaning to keep her calm and relaxed. It worked, this time, but he knew it couldn't last: making a relationship on lies, that is.

This was but the first of many temptations he'd suffer to do harm to Emma Swan while she was away.

 **San Francisco, California…**

Meanwhile, a mysterious letter had arrived on Faith Lehane's desk in her work, for lack of a better way of putting it, Kennedy had pressured/begged/and yes, sort of bullied Faith into staying on as her employee, and Kenny's reasons were only now becoming clear to Miss Lehane: simply put: Kennedy loved her, as a friend, and possibly closer, as something of a sister as well, and well, the younger Slayer hadn't lied when she let slip that she could be a "bit of a brat"; she had managed to get Faith to stay on in her business from single-minded determination- and it *wasn't* for lack of quality service for employees or activities that many of the older ones wanted to leave. The more Faith thought about it the more she got the conclusion that Kennedy's sole reason for giving such generous benefits to her employees was rooted in simple love of them- that was the only reason that made any sense to Miss Lehane about Kennedy's actions in this business… nothing else added up to squat, basically, if you remove the love she showed her employees none of it made any sense, surely not financially and definitely not in terms of business. Faith was therefore forced to reason that Kennedy was working on her soul. _"Makes sense, really"_ Faith thought as she opened the mail that she'd received from the mail-delivery worker in the office _"she's the one of us with the most experience with the First, so naturally she'd be one of the most spiritual- then why, with all of her efforts to be kind is she so hated by so many people here?"_ Faith wondered as she read the letter. It was written by someone claiming to know her real parentage, and that this family was not from this realm.

Shortly thereafter, Faith received a very strange phone-call from a blocked number- that's when her day got *really* weird: Buffy was on the other end. Something Miss Summers told her was even stranger: it appears that when Faith did that weird "body-swap spell" as they came to call it when joking about that incident, Buffy had tapped into Faith's feelings- which she said were "deadened, somewhat" and Faith had felt for the first time what Buffy felt when they hung out, particularly that the blonde loved her and wished she could have had her as a sister. That was the first true bonding they engaged in; to some degree Buffy had been Faith's almost older sister, and a lot of the rivalry between them was due to simple jealousy on Faith's part for Buffy's family and gifts… not the physical ones, but the more personal ones: a loving world, basically, with good, close friends. There was also a residual telepathic bond between them that had gotten far stronger as time went on between Faith and Buffy, but only really kicked in post the destruction of the Sunnydale Hellmouth- it was like a low-level radio-signal that was constant between them and got stronger when one of them (or both of them) was in close proximity- this could throw off their detection of monsters, so they tended to avoid that as much as possible, but Giles, with his interest in science, had wanted to experiment regarding it some more. They suspected it could have been a bi-product of this spell that Faith had done to steal Buffy's body.

This cinched the deal: Faith ended the call with Buffy, and, having done some thinking all along during this conversation, dialed Kennedy's cell-phone, and told her that she needed to take some personal time to straighten some matters out. Kennedy's answer was that she'd keep Faith's place in the business open for as long as possible, that she really cared about her, and wished her well in this trip.

Within a few days, Faith was driving across country in a red car, where-to? She wasn't really sure, all that the brunette from Boston had as a clue was a name of a town "Storybrooke"; and a vague hint that it was somewhere in the North-East. Driving would give her time to reflect and plan, as well as consider her options- in fact, she was crossing the Mississippi River on a ferry when she found out that this town was somewhere on Maine's coast. Faith had dropped off the grid to work on finding this town and resolving some weird personal problems.

 **The New England Highway between Mass. and Maine…**

Regina had no idea of how exactly this had happened, but she had managed to talk down an enraged Miss Swan from ending the life of Starla, or Lily, or whoever she was, and it was clear that these two had a history that was unpleasant. From what Gina could have guessed, Lily had possibly been in love with Emma when the two of them were sixteen, but the two of them were forcibly separated, and their "fates", or whatever you could call it, were entwined tighter than peas in a pod, or so the saying goes. Regina resolved that this mystery was one she was going to investigate further, but she also had her own ambitions she needed Maleficents' daughter for, and she was going to tell *no-one* what those tasks were until they came to pass!

To Be Continued.

 **Author's Notes, End Chapter 1.** _Please, tell me what you think. Sorry for the jumbled storyline, I had an interruption due to real life that couldn't be avoided, and wouldn't let myself give up the story- so it might be a bit weird. Also, a good part of it is inspired by other people's ideas, as is always the case with any writer's work. Please enjoy. More will come, and this is mostly an action/adventure and drama story._


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